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Saturday, April 21, 2018

Big Poppa Pump Goes Streamer Fishing

Thus far, the extent of Big Poppa Pump's fishing adventures with my brother and I have been limited to nymphing for trout. It is the easiest way to get Pops on a fish with his lack of skill casting a fly rod. When we pushed off on this venture, I had him armed with a 9wt, a 350 grain sinking line, and a six inch deer hair streamer. In other words, an entirely different game. He would also be casting from a moving raft that required fly placement under over hanging branches. After several misplaced casts into trees, tangles, and overall difficulty managing his fly line, he finally started to get the hang of it. With decent visibility, I could see most of the takes and tell him to set the hook. The second hurdle was improving his reaction time to my verbal commands. This proved to be hilarious. My Dad had eats from some truly monster smallmouth bass and almost every single time would miss the hook set, fail to hook set hard enough, have a line management issue, or be drifting aimlessly in outer space. All told, he boated three smallmouth bass. He missed out on 24 eats. That count started about halfway through the day. I kept my brother and sister updated with a live accounting of events which added some additional pressure on the old man. However, this kept the stoke high and my Dad started to get really into this particular type of fly fishing. Overall, it was time well spent on the water with the old man.